


Carnations

by jukeboxpills



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, Reddie, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, carnations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 05:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13697640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxpills/pseuds/jukeboxpills
Summary: Eddie finds flowers strewn about his school on Valentine's Day and he can't figure out where they're coming from.





	Carnations

**Author's Note:**

> Venus helped me out so much with this. So thank you to her. She's @pennywheeeze on Tumblr if you want to see some good quality Stranger Things/IT stuff.

It was Valentine’s Day in Derry, Maine, and Eddie had not expected it to be out of the ordinary from any other previous Valentine’s Days. Or any other nonspecific day. Eddie woke up in the morning, combed his hair, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and left for school. Just a normal day in the life of Edward Kaspbrak. 

The perfect normalcy of this particular date was ruined when Eddie arrived at his locker. Tucked into the slotted vent at the top was a pink flower. Eddie groaned and pulled it out. 

There was nothing connected to it, and he found nothing in his locker when he opened it. He decided it must’ve just been shoved into his locker as a joke or something. Someone didn’t want the flower that had been given to them, so they just shoved it into the first locker they came across. He nodded to himself, satisfied with this story, and pulled the books he needed for chemistry out of his locker before closing it and leaving the flower inside. He could’ve thrown it out, but who knows. Maybe the person who left it there will change their mind and come looking for it. 

Eddie found another on his chair in chemistry. He reassured himself it was just another accident as he carefully placed the pink flower on top of his chemistry book. 

Eddie found more flowers. One in the spare fanny pack he always keeps in his locker. One on his seat in every one of his classes. One in the nurse’s office when his watch beeped and he had to go take his pills. One in the bathroom when he went during history to escape his teacher’s boring drone like he does every day.

By the time the lunch bell rang, Eddie had eight soft pink flowers stacked on top of his books hidden in his locker, safe behind a combination no one else knew. At least, that’s what he had thought. Someone must’ve gotten into his locker to put the flower in his fanny pack. Or maybe he had put one there and forgotten about it. It could happen, Eddie could be very forgetful sometimes. 

On his way to lunch, Eddie met up with Beverly. This year was tough because, for the first half of the day, Eddie didn’t see any of the other Losers. Luckily he had lunch with Bev, art with Ben, and Home Ec. with Stan. Unfortunately, at the end of everyday Eddie got the pleasure of participating in gym class with Richie Tozier. 

On the way to the cafeteria, Eddie explained to Bev what had been happening with the flowers. Beverly just smiled at him the entire time. 

“What?” Eddie asked, shooting his friend a confused glance as they sat down at a table, both with a brown bag in hand. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Beverly’s smiles just widened. She shook her head. “You think all those flowers were accidents?”

Eddie nodded and opened his lunch bag. 

Bev pointed to a booth behind him with a big yellow sign reading: “CARNATIONS 25 CENTS.” Under it was two girls looking bored with a metal cash box and a bucket filled with the pink-tinted flowers. 

“Someone’s into you,” Bev said, unpacking her own lunch bag. “And it’s serious if they’re going through all that trouble. How many did you say you got?”

Eddie ignored his fire-haired friend and stood. He pushed his chair back and marched over to the carnation booth.

“How do you get them so pink?” he asked, wanting answers to the most important questions first. Also trying to make small talk before interrogating the poor girls working the booth. 

“Put food dye in the water,” one said without looking at him. 

“Hey,” Eddie started, “had anyone come by and bought a really large amount of these?” 

“Yup,” said the same girl. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Everyone’s buying bouquets.” She finally shifted her gaze over to his face, and her expression changed. “Are you Eddie K?” she asked him. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Why?”

“I have to give you a flower.” She pulled a random flower out of the bucket and handed it to him. 

“Why?” Eddie asked, confused. “I don’t have any money and I’ve gotten enough flowers already.”

The girl shrugged. “Some lunatic came by this morning and told me to save out a flower for ‘the sweetest boy around’ after buying almost every flower we had out.” She used her fingers to make quotation marks in the air while saying that. 

“Really? Who was it.”

She shrugged again. “Can’t say. I’ve been sworn to secrecy.” 

Eddie glared at her. His eyes moved to where the second one was sitting. She hadn’t moved since he came over. “Well, thanks, I guess,” Eddie said, walking back towards his seat. 

When he sat down Bev was smirking at him. He rolled his eyes and put the dyed-pink carnation he was holding down on the table. 

“Some lunatic really likes you,” Beverly said, waggling her eyebrows at Eddie. 

Eddie groaned. “You heard that?” 

The rest of the day went the same, with a flower on every seat. When Eddie got to the boys’ locker room, he found a carnation inside his locker there. Richie was sitting on the bench in front of his own locker, which was right next to Eddie’s. 

When Eddie pulled the flower out Richie turned to him. “Ah say, my deah. You show have one heck of a fiiiiine gal.”

“I don’t know who’s doing this,” Eddie told his friend. “Did you see anyone? Did you see who put this in here?”

It must’ve been a boy, then, because a girl wouldn’t‘ve passed unnoticed in the boys' locker room. But who? He only ever really talked to his friends in the Loser’s Club, and he couldn’t think of any of them doing this. 

“Who wouldn’t want to shower a cutie like you in flowers, Eds?” Richie cooed, pinching Eddie’s cheek. 

“Stop, Rich, I’m serious.” Eddie pushed Richie’s hand away from his face and glared at the other boy. “And don’t call me that, you know I hate it.”

“Oh, but you know I love it,” Richie argued, sliding his foot into a battered Converse sneaker. 

“You really shouldn’t run in those,” Eddie said, pointing to Richie’s sneaker. “They have no arch support. You’ll have chronic back problems when you’re older.”

“My love for you is all the arch support I need.” Richie dramatically clapped his hands to his chest, winking at Eddie. 

Eddie frowned at him. “You’d better hurry up and get changed before the coach calls us out, Eds,” Richie said. Eddie glanced at the clock and saw that their allotted ten minutes was almost up. 

Eddie tried not to pay attention to the dark haired boy sitting almost in front of him as he pulled off his school clothes and quickly dressed in his gym clothes. 

He sat on the bench next to Richie to tie his shoes. “You sure you didn’t see anyone put that flower in my locker?” he asked. 

“I’ve only seen me and you since I got here,” Richie said, putting his hands up. 

Eddie sighed. “I’d really like to know who’s doing it. And why.”

Before Richie could respond, a whistle blew and all the boys ran to get out of the cramped room and into the gymnasium.

Eddie was grateful when the coach finally blew his whistle to signal the end of class. He and Richie walked back to the locker room together, their shoulders bumping with every step. (More like Eddie’s shoulder bumping into Richie’s arm.) 

“You look sad, Eds,” Richie said when they got back to their lockers. “How many chucks have you had today?” 

Eddie tried to glare at Richie but gave up when he saw the genuinely concerned look on his best friend’s face. He huffed. “I just want to know who’s been leaving me these flowers.”

“Do you not like the flowers?” Richie said a little too quickly. 

“I like them, alright, I just want to know who they’re from.” Eddie took the pink carnations out of his locker again and twirled it through his fingers. “What if they want to date me and I don’t like them? What if they’re creepy? They must be creepy they know both my locker combinations.” 

Eddie gazed up at Richie and saw that his face had turned as pink as the flower in Eddie’s hand. 

“I’m sure, whoever they are, they can’t be that bad.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Eddie said, putting the flower down so he could change. “If they went through this much trouble they can’t be a bad person.”

Richie nodded before pulling off his own shirt. 

Later on, Eddie found another carnation on his bike outside the school. His bike sat alone on the rack. Usually, Richie would ride home with him, but after gym class, Richie had bolted, leaving Eddie to bike home alone. And all the other Losers were in different directions, so he didn’t want to inconvenience them just because he needed someone to accompany him back to his house. 

So Eddie carefully put this flower in his backpack with the other twelve, making sure their petals were poking out of the zipper so they wouldn’t get crushed. Then he hopped on his bike and pedaled home. 

He hummed all the way back to his house. It didn’t have a tune or an emotion. Just mindless noise. This Valentine’s Day was definitely different from any other Eddie Kaspbrak had ever experienced before. It would’ve been amazing if only he had found out what person was leaving him the flowers! It was so frustrating, and he drew a blank every time he tried to figure it out. 

Eddie’s feet slowed as he rounded the corner of the street his house was on. His feet slowed even more once he noticed a tall, skinny figure standing on his porch. Maneuvering closer, Eddie noticed that this figure was, in fact, Richie. 

“What the fuck?” Eddie mumbled to himself, bringing his bike to a halt in his driveway. Then out loud, “Richie what are you doing here?”

Richie has him a shit eating grin and hopped down the porch stairs onto the ground. Eddie set his bike on the ground and walked over to where Richie was standing with his hands behind his back, that smile still on his face. 

“What’re you doing here?” Eddie repeated. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

For once in eternity, it seemed like the great Trashmouth Tozier was speechless. Eddie watched in awe as Richie brought his hands out from behind his back, three pink tinted flowers tied together with red ribbon clutched in them. 

Eddie gaped. “You?” was all he said. Richie nodded, grin growing even wider. Eddie carefully plucked the flowers out of Richie’s grasp with one hand and used the other hand to punch the taller boy in the shoulder. 

“Ow,” Richie complained, his face never faltering. “I did not deserve that.”

“I can’t yell out here. The neighbors will hear and tell my mom,” Eddie said, taking Richie’s hand and dragging him into the house. “She’s not home yet. She’s at some weird bingo poetry club thing.”

“I never thought your mom would be a club kind of person, but I can totally see it now that I think about it.”

Eddie rolled his eyes hard as he let go of Richie’s hand and turned to face him. “Why the fuck did you do that you absolute asshat?!” 

“Because I love seeing my Eddie Spaghetti all fired up,” Richie said, beaming at Eddie whose hands were delicately wrapped around the carnation stems, trying desperately not to break them in his rage. 

“Don’t fucking call me that!” Eddie stomped into the kitchen and brought out a large clear glass vase decorated with grape vines. He kept one eye on Richie, who had calmly followed him into the kitchen, and one eye on the base which he was now filling up with water. Eddie untied the ribbon, pulled the other flowers out of his backpack, and put all fifteen flowers into the vase. 

Eddie looked at the vase of carnations in his hands and a smile slowly crept onto his face. “Richie, how did you afford all of these? They’re twenty-five cents each. That’s like…” Eddie paused as he did the math in his head. “Three dollars and seventy-five cents.”

Richie shrugged and stepped a bit closer to the smaller boy. “I mowed a lot of lawns.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows at Richie. “This is so fucking cheesy.”

“But you like it, right?” Richie moved even closer to Eddie. 

Eddie set the vase down on the counter and shuffled forward so that their bodies were practically pressed together. “I love it.”

This Valentine’s Day was not like any other Valentine’s Day. Because today Eddie was kissing Richie with the smell of carnations filling the small kitchen. Eddie could feel Richie’s mouth curl into a smile. He wrapped his arms around Richie’s shoulders and decided that today was the best day ever.


End file.
